The invention relates to balance boards and, more particularly, to balance boards in connection with people involved in balance and fitness training like surfing, wind-surfing, wake boarding or skate boarding.
The prior art is replete with balance boards for balancing on balls—or in more difficult terminology, spherical rolling fulcrums—with underside bearing surfaces formed as domes. Eg., U.S. Pat. No. 4,191,371-Armer, Jr. An issue with these prior art systems is that when a trainee causes the domed bearing-surface to climb up on the ball on the dome's periphery, gravity always wants to pull the board down such that the ball finds the high center.
It is an object of the invention to provide balance training apparatus including a balance board which overcome these and other shortcomings with the prior art.
It is a further object of the invention to provide the bearing surface of the balance board (ie., the surface which bears against the spherical rolling fulcrums) with frames to frame in the area in which the spherical rolling fulcrums can operate.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a progressive series of such frames to make progressively smaller the framed-in area under the board in which the training ball can operate.
It is another object of the invention to combine two boards in an over and under arrangement, as separated by a spherical rolling fulcrum and tethered in part by flexible straps, to enable the trainee to tip the board on which he or she is standing and thereby more naturally simulate a real experience on a wave.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide an upper deck board which has a more concave shape and is separated from the receiving board by lifts to provide greater toe and heel contact for the user and a hand hold space which helps in simulating a skate board.
A number of additional features and objects will be apparent in connection with the following discussion of preferred embodiments and examples.